


Aphrodite Meet Venus

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/F, First Dates, Fluff, Humor, Online Dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: In which Laurel stumbles upon Michaela’s online dating profile, Michaela is understandably mortified, and a quest of Arthurian proportions to win her heart (and a date) ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinkin a while back... about the whole Michaela online dating profile thing [they showed once](http://murdercaps.tumblr.com/image/130066671502) then never elaborated on, and then because I know I've not written Lauraela in a looong time, I came up with this lil fic. It took me a long ass time, but. It's finally here.
> 
> The title is a play on the name of Michaela’s dating website in the show, which (see above) was Cupid Meet Venus. Only now it’s gay. So.

She’s at the office when she gets the alert from her app.

_1 NEW WINK_

Her phone announces the fact cheerfully, accompanied by a little pink heart emoji surrounded by sparkles and a low, rumbling buzz. Immediately, before Connor or anyone else can notice, she panics and swipes it up off the coffee table in front of her, bringing it close.

Dammit. She’s seriously got to remember to turn off notifications for that thing.

So, yes, if you’re wondering, Michaela Pratt _has_ indeed ventured into the fresh hell that is the world of online dating. She’s not exactly proud of it. In fact, she’s pretty ashamed; ashamed enough to bury the app three pages deep in some obscure folder in her phone labelled ‘miscellaneous’, where no one – including Connor, who apparently gets his kicks by grabbing her phone whenever she lets her guard down, holding it hostage, and snooping to his heart’s content – will ever find it.

She’s not exactly proud of the desperation her entrance into the world of online dating denotes. But she _also_ isn’t a huge fan of the idea of dying alone; an old spinster lawyer with four cats who specializes in divorce law to feel better about her own shitty, unfortunate love life. Which is the future she’s envisioned for herself more than once since Aiden broke off their engagement, as a matter of fact.

So. Pros and cons. It's a matter of pros and cons here.

She’s not exactly proud. And when she picks up her phone, unlocks it, opens the app, and sees who the _wink_ – the Facebook equivalent of a _poke_ , she’s learned – is from, all the blood drains from her face.

_1 NEW WINK_

_FROM: LAUREL C._

Oh.

Oh my _God_.

She’s left paralyzed and gaping, for a good minute or so; thankfully in a mostly surreptitious manner that keeps the others, Asher and Connor and Wes sitting around her, from noticing. Praying somehow, to some digital Internet overlord, that there is more than one _Laurel C._ in the greater Philadelphia area.

Then, she launches into a flurry of furious tapping.

Against what is probably her better judgement – though Michaela isn’t sure her _better judgement_ is a Thing anymore – she taps the chipper little alert spreading itself across the top of the screen, bringing her into the app.

And there, staring back at her on the glowing LED screen, is Laurel Castillo.

The profile picture looks old; a selfie taken with what must be the front-facing camera, in which Laurel is giving a coquettish little grin, eyes narrowed to give her an air of mystery, as if amused by some secret she’ll never tell. Her dark hair is straight, longer than Michaela has ever seen it, framing a pale face and strikingly clear blue eyes that are narrowed and gleaming. The lighting is good; it’s clear she’d taken it from her best angle too. She’s in something sleeveless, an athletic tank top; not low-cut enough to be trashy, but more than enough to entice.

Laurel. Laurel Castillo.

Laurel Castillo is on CupidMeetVenus.com, and she _winked_ at her.

Better judgement tries to intrude, again. Stop this venture before it spirals out of control entirely. Tries, fails, falls flat on its face, and lays there watching her, pleading, as she scrolls down further, mouth agape, limbs all numb and pins and needles, to read her profile. Height. Body type. Ethnicity. Hair and eye color and education and occupation. Relationship? Single. Does she drink? Socially.

Not that anyone in their right mind would put _raging alcoholic_ on their profile and expect positive results.

The body of her profile is sparsely populated, with only the ‘about’ and ‘interests’ sections filled in. She scans the ‘about’ first, brows pulling together.

> _Dazzle me. Sweep me off my feet. Pamper me. Rescue me. I’m a princess and love to be spoiled._
> 
> _Also my dad’s a cartel boss. So if I don’t fuck you up first he will._

Fuck. What the _fuck._ What _is_ this?

She scowls. The first part sounds nothing like Laurel at all; in fact it sounds so _un_ like Laurel and downright cringeworthy it makes her squirm. The second part does, a little more, though from what she’s gathered Laurel’s dad _isn’t_ a cartel boss, as a matter of fact, and she gets very, very angry when people assume he is – as Asher had learned after a particularly lengthy and emphatic rant about harmful Mexican stereotypes courtesy of an exhausted Laurel at the end of a fifty-hour work week. The paragraph is all over the place, hopelessly disjointed; so dissimilar to her that Michaela can’t help but wonder if it’s all some kind of joke.

Interests, next. Her interests are slightly less bewildering, or at least the grand total of four she’s listed. 

> _Travel. Cats. Reading trashy romance novels._
> 
> _Smashing the patriarchy._

“What’s up?” Connor’s voice, cutting in her reverie from the armchair across from her. “Look, if you’re getting riled up by dirty sexts and want us to give you some alone time, believe me… we’d be more than happy to oblige.”

Michaela almost drops the phone, fumbling with it for a moment before she remembers how to switch it off. She’s sure she looks flustered, and she’s _way_ too damn flustered to conceal the fact; she’s always had a notoriously awful poker face, and Connor sees right through it in seconds, irritatingly perceptive at the worst times.

“Wait, _were_ you?” he scoffs, closing the folder in his lap. Asher and Wes have looked up by now, intrigued but not wanting to join in provoking her just yet.

“No!” she exclaims, too fast to be convincing, then shakes her head. “I… no, of course not, I-”

A sound, then. The front door opening, followed by footsteps echoing down the hallway, clopping on the hardwood, and of course in comes Laurel, of all people, clad in a long tweed winter coat, trailing behind Bonnie with a box of discovery files in her arms from the DA’s office. Laurel Castillo, who stops, sets the box down in the doorway, then looks up and meets her eyes, and Michaela swears she can see a smile dancing in hers; that same secret, wicked amusement she’d seen in her picture.

She flushes about fifty different shades of red, then snaps out of it hastily, shakes her head, collects up her phone, and dismisses herself with a muttered, “I, uh… I’ll be right back.”

She thinks Asher calls out something along the lines of _aww yeah get that D boo boo!_ after her, but she ignores it and goes sauntering into the kitchen, giving Laurel a furtive but demanding look as she passes by her. The other girl gets the message quickly and follows, and it’s only after she’s made sure they’re alone in the next room that Michaela rounds on her all at once.

“What the _hell_ , Laurel?”

Laurel blinks, feigning innocence. “What?”

“You _know_ what!” she hisses, keeping her voice as low as possible and looking over Laurel’s shoulder, to make sure Connor hasn’t gotten curious and followed. She unlocks her phone and thrusts it in her face, cheeks burning. “What the hell is this?”

“Oh. That.” Laurel grins, entirely unfazed; so unfazed it’s infuriating. “I mean, I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I?”

“You… _winked_ at me, you-” She exhales sharply, takes a second to collect her thoughts, then fixes her gaze steadily on her. “How did you find me? A-and _why_ do you even have an online dating profile to begin with? With this… weird description about being swept off your feet? What-” She cuts herself off, her brain misfiring, malfunctioning. “What the _hell_?”

“First?” Laurel says with that same cocky grin fixed on her lips. “Calm down, you’re gonna give yourself an aneurysm. And second? I don’t actually use that profile to date.”

Michaela scowls. “Then why do you have it?”

“I made it as a social experiment, back at Brown,” she informs her, straight-faced. “Purposely put the most awful, damsel-y description I could think of. I used to go on dates with, like, the worst guys possible. And after they bought me dinner I’d spend the whole time lecturing them on feminism and Latina stereotypes.”

“And that’s how you, what, got your _kicks_?”

Laurel shrugs, gives a wistful little smile at the memory. “I got free food, they got an education. Win-win.”

“Oh my God,” she blurts out, a sudden, irrational desire to laugh bubbling up in her chest. “I mean, I admire that, but… Still.”

“Mmm hmm,” Laurel affirms, raising an eyebrow, reaching out, and plucking the phone from her hands. Michaela tries to swipe it back, but before she can Laurel has scrolled sideways to her profile, bringing it up instead. “Now you. What’re you doing on there? Because, FYI, yours isn’t much better. _Just a queen looking for her king_? Really?”

“I-” She grinds her teeth, avoiding her eyes. “It’s… it’s embarrassing, okay? I don’t wanna talk about it, I just-” She shakes her head. “I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’ve been having… shitty dating luck, recently, and-”

“You really think you’re gonna find your soulmate on CupidMeetVenus.com?” Laurel scoffs. “Because believe me, all you’re gonna find is a thirty-five-year-old World of Warcraft enthusiast named Chet who lives in his mother’s basement.”

“That’s… weirdly specific,” she stops for a moment, before reaching out again and attempting to grab the phone out of her hands once more. “Now give it back, Laurel, hey-”

Laurel proves surprisingly agile, however, and dodges her with a graceful flourish, taking one last glimpse at her profile before Michaela finally succeeds in plucking it out of her hand.

“I have to say,” she says, seemingly impressed. “Nice profile pic. Really nice.” She pauses, meeting her eyes and placing her hands on her hips. “It’s hot.”

Michaela blinks, fidgeting underneath the weight of her gaze and tucking the phone away in her pocket. The observation sounds outwardly objective, and there’s no reason for it to make her squirm but it does, regardless, and she can’t exactly help it. _Everything_ about Laurel makes her squirm; she’s unnervingly direct and all too forward, and Michaela has always been partial to ignoring the truth, lying to herself. Laurel doesn’t lie. Laurel seems to know her; understand her, on some disturbingly deep level, like she’s observed her long enough to have a full dossier of psychological analyses on her.

She really, really hates that, for the record. _And_ her.

“You-” She stops herself, breathing out furiously through her nose like a bull on the brink of charging. “You still haven’t explained how you found me.”

“Oh, I decided to check it today for fun,” she says, flippantly. “I have seeking both girls and guys on. You showed up as ‘nearby’.”

That makes her freeze. “I don’t… I don’t have seeking girls on. I’m not _seeking_ girls!”

Laurel folds her arms, shrugging, that same look of subtle amusement in her eyes. “It’s fine if you’re not. Maybe you turned it on by accident.”

Michaela clenches her jaw, then switches her phone back on and re-enters the app, navigating to the settings – and sure enough, lo and behold, there’s a chipper green checkmark beside the option for girls. She unchecks it hastily and closes out of the app, fixing Laurel with a firm, displeased look.

“Let’s just…” She lowers her eyes, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Let’s just forget this ever happened, okay?”

She starts a take a step away, but Laurel’s voice sounds out to stop her; soft, goading. “And here I thought a wink meant something these days.”

Michaela turns. Okay. This is new. Laurel no longer appears to be psychoanalyzing her – no, not at all. She sounds like she’s joking. She _also_ sounds like she’s flirting, not-so-subtly, and Michaela is having trouble discerning which one it really is because Laurel has always been frustratingly unreadable, and hopelessly confusing.

“Delete me,” she orders, though it doesn’t have much power behind it. It comes out as more of a sigh than anything, as she makes her way back over to her. “Or… or _block_ me. However you get rid of me on there, just – do it.”

“Why would I wanna do that?” Laurel plays dumb. “I winked at you, didn’t I? Means I’m interested.”

“Okay – stop, Laurel, seriously.”

“I am serious,” she tells her. “Go on a date with me.”

The words don’t register, at first. She hears them and she doesn’t, and it takes a moment before she’s able to formulate a response, or even formulate a coherent thought, because Laurel Castillo is asking her out. This is, most likely, a massive joke she’s on the outs of; for all she knows Connor put her up to it – though she can’t see Laurel agreeing to do this for Connor, and she doesn’t appear to be kidding. As a matter of fact, she looks so serious Michaela can’t help but fidget again.

This day just keeps getting stranger. But compared to murder and the veritable laundry list of other felonies she's complicit in… she supposes this isn’t really strange at all, in the macro prospective.

She just looks at her. “What, so you can let me buy you dinner and then lecture me about feminism?”

“No,” Laurel says, strikingly sincere. “I won’t do any of that. And I’ll buy.”

“I don’t… I don’t want a friend-date, or a girl’s night out, or-”

“So it’ll be a real date,” she proposes. “Dinner and a movie. Wherever you wanna go.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_ , okay, she’s fast running out of excuses – but no. She’s Michaela Pratt. She’s _always_ got more excuses.

“I – you’re not into girls.”

Laurel raises her eyebrows. “A bold assumption, considering my profile literally says I’m into girls.”

“Fine, then… Then _I’m_ not into girls,” she declares, raising her chin. “I’m _not_. So no.”

Laurel doesn’t flinch, still, even though she hasn’t let her down easy by any means. She doesn’t look upset, or disappointed; she’s still just _looking_ at her, with that faint amusement that feels condescending but also doesn’t, not at all. Finally, the other girl lets her arms drop back down to her sides, in a show of capitulation.  

“Fine,” she concedes, unbothered as ever. “But my offer still stands, if your long line of digital suitors named Chet doesn’t work out.”

Laurel leaves her, with that. Michaela clenches her jaw, and stands there for a moment, reopening the app, tapping through to Laurel’s profile, and locating the block button, letting her finger hover over it. She almost, almost does it.

Almost. For some reason she can’t quite bring herself to, though.

 

~

 

Her first date goes pretty much as terribly as possible.

His name is Trenton. Not _Chet_. He looks attractive enough in his profile picture – a bit skinnier than she usually dates, but that’s not a deal breaker. A well-groomed, white hipster from the city; thick glasses, styled slick hair, clean shaven, piercing green eyes. Mediocre face. He’s not exceptionally, wildly hot, sure as hell not the love of her life, and she’s well aware she’s light years out of his league, but Michaela figures she ought to ease into this whole online dating thing slowly. Go with someone who looks relatively harmless. Or at least… the least like a serial killer.

Who the hell is she kidding. If anyone should be worried about getting murdered on this date it should probably be him, given her track record.

Anyway. Trenton. He’s nice, charming in his messages. Polite. He’s getting his masters in something at UPenn. Literature or English, probably, because he looks the brooding, bookish type, and he hasn’t told her outright that he _isn’t like other guys_ but she strongly suspects that’s his creed. He is most likely a kale enthusiast who collects LP’s and aspires to one day own his own artisanal juice bar – though maybe she’s stereotyping.

She wonders, briefly, if Laurel would give her a lecture on hipster stereotyping, then chases the thought out of her mind before she can ponder it for long.

They meet at a cozy restaurant in Old City, and he looks pretty much the same in person, and pulls out her chair for her, and checks just about every box there is when it comes to manners and chivalry. He’s a bit too boyish for her, but he makes decent enough conversation, and it’s an all right time until-

Well. _Until._

“You know, I’m so glad you came out with me tonight,” he says over the rim of his wine glass; something dry and red with a French name he’d pronounced obnoxiously correctly to the waiter.

Michaela loads a smile onto her lips and fires away effortlessly. “Me too.”

“I just – I have to say,” Trenton remarks, eyes narrowing, intentions growing increasingly clear, “you’re gorgeous.”

He sounds sincere enough, and Michaela almost melts, but not quite. “Oh, that’s nice of-”

“And y’know, just between you and me,” he interrupts her before she can continue, lowering his voice and winking, “I totally have a thing for ebony girls.”

She’s too horrified even to blink, for a moment. “Excuse me?”

“Y’know, ebony girls. Dark chocolate. You’re just, like, my weakness. And in my experience,” he says, raising his hand and placing it against the side of his mouth as if to muffle his voice, like this is goddamn governmental, top-secret information, “black girls are _totally_ fire in bed.” He must notice the look of barely concealed disgust on her face right about then, because he rushes to correct himself. “But – I mean, not that we’re anywhere near that point, of course. I was just saying.”

Oh. My God. He’s really saying this. Trenton the Hipster genuinely thinks this is a good thing to talk about on the first date.

Why. _Why_?

Her first instinct is, immediately, to chew him out. Take a leaf out of Laurel’s book and scream at him about racial fetishism and his gross hypersexualization of black women and a whole other litany of social issues which his tiny white peanut mind can probably never properly comprehend – but it’s a packed restaurant, and she’d prefer not to make a scene, and she’s also too horrified to properly collect her thoughts in any meaningful, articulate way. So she gives into her body’s flight response, muttering a low _I’m going to the restroom_ under her breath and disappearing off to the back of the restaurant, nearly knocking over a busboy in her haste. She locates the bathroom, and thankfully it’s a single with no stalls which she can hide herself away in for as long as she needs.

So. How to get out of this.

Her first mistake was letting him drive her; she doesn’t have a car, and he’d offered, and she hadn’t wanted to turn him down though she probably should have. She could call an Uber. _Should_ , probably, call an Uber.

Instead, inexplicably, she finds herself calling Laurel.

“CupidMeetVenus.com, this is Laurel speaking. How may I help you?” Laurel answers, in what Michaela can only assume is supposed to be her best impression of a customer service rep.

Michaela rolls her eyes so hard she swears her corneas detach. “That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t Cupid Venus’s son?” Laurel wonders, ignoring her. “That’s kind of Oedipal, now that I think about it.”

“Oh my God,” Michaela hisses. “You know what? Nevermind, I’m hanging up-”

“No, no,” Laurel coos, apologetically. “I’m sorry. What’s up?”

“I-” She cuts herself off, exhaling in frustration. “I need you to pick me up.”

“Why?”

The question sounds leading, like she _knows_ , somehow – which she probably does. She’s never met anymore more perceptive than Laurel, not even Connor.

“I’m…” Again, she pauses. _Come on. Woman up, Michaela_. “I’m on a date, okay? And the guy’s a total creep – and I need you to pick me up, or… sneak me out, or something.”

There’s a pause on the other line.

“Does his name happen to be Chet?”

“ _No_ , his name isn’t Chet! You’ve completely ruined that name for me. Now are you gonna help me or do I need to call Connor?”

Laurel pauses again, then asks, “Where are you?”

“Nada, on fifth street,” she answers glumly. “I’m… hiding in the bathroom.”

“Well, never fear,” Laurel announces with audible determination. “I’ll be your knight in shining armor, milady.”

“ _Stop_.”

“What? You said you’re a queen looking for her king. So, you need a knight,” Laurel tells her, then relents and grows serious. “Be there in fifteen.”

Before Michaela can say anything else or offer further instructions, she hangs up with a click. Not knowing what else to do, she lowers the toilet seat, plops down onto it, buries her head into her hands, and waits.

Before long, there’s a knock on the door.

She shoots to her feet when she hears it, and there, unsurprisingly, stands Laurel, dutiful as ever, eyeing her with a look of faint amusement. She’s almost smirking at her through the dim, gold light, in a way that sends a shudder creeping up her spine like a centipede, but she shakes it off, pulling her inside none too gently.

“ _Get in_.”

“Okay, okay,” Laurel mutters, and lets herself be yanked inside. Michaela closes the door behind her with a huff, as Laurel dusts off her leather jacket like her grip has somehow scuffed it. “Geez.”

“Did you see him out there?” she bombards her with the question almost immediately, and Laurel frowns.

“Who, your date? How was I supposed to know what he looked like?”

“Skinny. White. Glasses. Hipster…?”

Laurel narrows her eyes. “You just described, like, every guy in this place.”

She clenches her jaw. “Whatever. I need you to sneak me out. Just… walk next to me. Be my cover.”

“You wanna hold holds too?”

“ _No_ ,” she hisses, although maybe, just maybe, that wouldn’t be the most terrible thing in the world. Not that she _wants_ to. But if she absolutely _had_ to, she could probably tolerate it. “Now come on. Before he comes looking for me.”

Michaela goes for the door, and Laurel follows dutifully, with an infuriating little grin. “Whatever you say. I’m always up for being Mrs. Steal-your-girl.”

Michaela ignores that as pointedly as one can ignore something, and leads her out the door.

It’s a small place; as such, there’s only one route to the exit, and that route happens to run directly past their table, where she spots Trenton the Hipster still seated, tapping away unsuspectingly on his phone, as if he somehow has no inkling whatsoever of how badly he’s blown this date. He should be easy to ignore, brush off and forget about completely, and skulk out surreptitiously with Laurel for cover – but instead, without warning, she finds herself stalking furiously towards him, leaving a stunned Laurel in the dust.

He looks up when she appears, and blinks. “Michaela? Hey, I-”

“For your information,” she cuts him off, sharply, “your fetishization of black women? Is disgusting. We don’t exist for you to get your _black belt_ or be your _dark chocolate_ , or – or whatever other racist thing you wanna pretend is a compliment.” She’s yelling, now. Full on yelling. People are staring, a lot of them, and she barely cares at all. “You know what? Y-you could give a crap about the color of my skin unless it’s _hot_ to you.”

He shoots to his feet. “Woah, wait, are you implying I’m racist? Because I have a black friend.”

“ _A_ black friend?” she scoffs, unable to contain the laugh that follows. “As in, singular?”

“Yeah, why, what does that-”

“Go to hell, Chet,” she spits, with the most saccharine smile she can manage, and he frowns, bewildered. 

“Chet? My name is Tren-”

She’s out the door and around the corner before he can finish that thought, with Laurel hot on her heels, trailing after her with a snicker. They come to a stop by the curb next to Laurel’s parked car, and the other girl waggles her eyebrows, raising her hand for a high-five.

“See? You took a leaf out of my book and it all worked out.” Michaela doesn’t budge, just stares at her proffered hand with a look of mostly-feigned contempt, and Laurel rolls her eyes, not buying into the act for a second. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging. That was badass. Kudos.”

She hesitates, but ultimately gives in, supplying her with an admittedly weak high-five, barely anything more than a momentary press of her palm against Laurel’s; she’s not exactly sure she wants to venture closer, chance any more contact – not when Laurel’s eyes are burning into her through the streetlight, and she’s standing there, gilded and gorgeous beneath it, making Michaela’s foolish heart stutter in a way that’s equally as intriguing as it is terrifying. It’s been different between them, since she offered herself up as her date. Like she’s flipped a switch she can’t seem to un-flip, seen Laurel in a way she can’t quite _un_ see.

Nope. No. Not happening. She’s stopping that train of thought right there on the tracks.

“Now that that’s over,” Laurel’s voice cuts into her reverie, and she folds her arms, cocking her head to one side. “My offer still stands. Go on a date with me.”

Michaela scoffs. “Oh my God.”

“Why not?” she asks. “You’re all dressed up, we’re already out… unless you’re going back-to-back and you’ve got another Chet waiting in the wings, we can still salvage tonight.”

Michaela can feel herself softening, momentarily, before she plates herself in steel again and sharpens her eyes into a bladed glare. “I don’t, for your information. I’d just really rather go home. Wash all his disgusting… white boy gross-ness off me.”

“So that’s a rain check on the date then?”

“ _No_ ,” Michaela snaps, and bites back the grin on her lips threatening to betray her. “I am not going on a date with you. Ever. Now, are you gonna drive me home or do I need to call an Uber?”

Laurel sighs flippantly, seemingly unfazed by the rejection like she always is, and strides over to her car, unlocking it. “Fine. But next time let me drive you; we’ve escaped jail way too many times for you to end up dead in a ditch at the side of the road because of some creep.”

Michaela hops into the passenger side and rolls her eyes for what must be the millionth time, if the aching in her optic nerves is any indication. “I can do without you being my chauffer, thank you very much. And if you’re trying to woo me into going on a date with you, it’s not going to work.”

One of Laurel’s eyebrows tugs upward, and her heart twinges in tandem, almost as if it’s connected by a string to one of her arteries – and _fuck_. Fuck.

This is getting annoying. Particularly because she can’t understand why it keeps happening.

“No? After you go out with a hundred Chets, you’ll change your mind. I’m a far better alternative.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re really not.”

“Fine. But you’ll change your mind, one day,” Laurel says with frustrating certainty, putting the car into drive and pulling out onto the road, in the direction of her apartment. “And when you do, I’ll be here.”

 

~

 

Her phone screen lights up on her nightstand that night.

Michaela rolls over onto her side when it does, grabbing the thing and raising it to her face, squinting at the blinding glow of the screen – and barely, just barely, making out the letters displayed there, next to that same, sparkling heart emoji from the app.

_1 NEW MESSAGE FROM:_

_LAUREL C._

She groans aloud, at the sight; she should’ve deleted the app a long time ago, migrated to another dating platform with far less _Laurel C’s_ constantly trying to slide into her DM’s, no matter how many times she turns her down. Really, she should’ve just blocked Laurel a long time ago; she doesn’t know why she hasn’t, yet.

Except she kind of, sort of does.

It’s against her better judgement, again, but before she can stop herself she’s tapping on the notification and watching the app display itself on her screen, with Laurel’s name on top and a tiny version of her profile picture next to it.

- _Reconsidered that raincheck yet?_

Michaela glares daggers at the screen, but it’s more fondness than it is genuine irritation brewing in her chest, now, swelling like a gentle monsoon. Which needs to change. It needs to go back to genuine irritation very, _very_ quickly, because if she lets it become fondness she has no goddamn _clue_ what this feeling will become next.

- _You really don’t take no for an answer do you?_

_-Damn straight. Which I’m not, by the way_

A laugh bursts past her lips, but Michaela stifles it quickly, almost as if the other girl could have heard, somehow.

- _Hilarious. And no, I haven’t reconsidered yet_

Yet. She types the word before she even realizes it, and curses herself the instant it appears. Yet. _Yet_ implies possibility. A chance. She wants to make it very clear Laurel _has_ no chance.

Laurel, predictably, latches onto the word at once.

- _Yet? What can I do to persuade you?_

_-I’m a grade A sexter, if that’s what you’re into_

Michaela snorts, and blushes. She doesn’t know what she’s doing; texting Laurel Castillo at two AM. Letting Laurel Castillo flirt with her and very lowkey, sort of highkey flirting back. This can, inevitably, only end in catastrophe – though there’s something in a dangerously far south region of her body that’s telling her it’ll be one hell of a sweet, sweet catastrophe.

- _No thanks. And if you keep this up, FYI, I’m going to block you_

There she goes: shutting her down. Ending this conversation before it can venture beyond the point of no return. She tries to pretend she doesn’t feel a little bit bad, though the guilt gnaws at the corners of her mind with its tiny barbed teeth, refusing to be so easily ignored.

- _Fine. Block me_   

Michaela scowls. Laurel knows what she’s doing, calling her bluff. She knows perfectly well she won’t do it, and for a moment Michaela is tempted to follow through, block her and finally be done with it, but instead she finds her fingers tapping away at the keyboard instead, unwilling to back down.

- _You block me_

- _You first_

- _Laurel_

- _No YOU first_

- _I’m done talking to you. Goodbye_

She slams her phone back down on the nightstand and switches it off, triumphant, waiting there for a moment, fingers itching to read her reply but her better judgement restraining them over and over, until it’s done all it can do and she reaches over and gives in, turning it back on, her stomach doing delighted little flip-flops and cartwheels inside her.

- _Fine. Until your next date night, princess_

 _Princess_. God, she really, really hates that.

She also really, really doesn’t. Not at all.

 

~

 

 After that night, Laurel appoints herself her unofficial bad date chauffer. And grudgingly, Michaela lets her.

She doesn’t need a protector, or a savior, or a knight in shining armor, but having a reliable ride and proverbial shoulder to cry on after a shitty date is more than welcome, most nights, as she goes out with a long, equally bland, often times offensive line of suitors whose names and faces all blur together over time. Not that she actually cries – she does more bitching than anything, and Laurel always listens, uncomplainingly, understandingly, even when she’s interrupted her in the middle of a study group the night before an exam to come scoop her sorry ass up off the curb.

She calls her one particularly awful night – she just about has her number on speed dial, and her finger taps her name almost before she even realizes it – and Laurel is out in front of the bar in what must be record time, pulling over and letting her hop in to the passenger side. It’s raining, the drops pelting her so hard they might as well be tiny bullets, and she’s soaked, shivering, and miserable by the time she settles down next to her, teeth chattering.

“Hey,” Laurel greets, and Michaela stops shuddering long enough to wrangle a half-smile onto her lips.

“Hey.”

“What was it this time?” Laurel asks. “Trump supporter or Dungeons and Dragons guild master?”

“The latter,” Michaela mutters with contempt, slamming the door shut behind her. “I think I was recruited into his… Magic clan.”

“Magic as in, David Blaine magic?”

She snorts. “As in the card game. If it was David Blaine magic I might’ve at least stuck around for the second drink.”

“You really know how to pick ‘em, huh?”

That earns Laurel a glare, but the look withers quickly, and after a moment Michaela sighs, leaning back against the seat and massaging her temples. “Can I not be kicked when I’m down, please?”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, voice low, suddenly sincere. “But, look on the bright side: after so many dates, you’re… guaranteed to find Mr. Right eventually. Law of averages and all that.”

Michaela exhales sharply and closes her eyes for a moment, letting the silence wash over them like a tide, punctuated now and then by the pitter-pattering collision of raindrops against the windshield.

“Fuck the law of averages,” she mutters, finally. “And fuck guys in general.”

Through the darkness, she catches a glimmer of laughter in Laurel’s eyes. “That’s all they’re good for, usually.”

Silence, again. There’s no particular burden to fill it with words, chase it away, beat it back; it feels necessary, and comfortable, with Laurel, in a way no silence has ever really felt to her before. Laurel isn’t pressing her to talk about it like Connor or anyone else probably would; Laurel isn’t pressing her to talk at all. Laurel is just sitting there, offering her presence, silent and steady and understanding even when she’s a soaking wet, shivering, grouchy mess.

She hears an unidentifiable crinkling of plastic, suddenly, and by the time Michaela wrenches her eyes open, Laurel has reached into the backseat and withdrawn a bouquet of flowers – red roses, probably, though her eyes can’t discern the color through the darkness, at first. She holds them out to her without a word, and immediately Michaela bristles, scowling.

“What is this?”

“Here,” Laurel says simply. “They’re for you.”

She narrows her eyes. “… Why?”

“Because,” Laurel tells her, with a shrug, “all these bad dates with all these terrible guys… I figured none of them are bringing you flowers. Treating you right.”

She softens, scowl perking up into a tentative grin, and it’d been hard to see Laurel before, in the thickness of the night, but now it’s like she’s a sunspot, glowing, illuminating the dark with her gaze and warming Michaela all over. She looks so disarming; holding out the flowers almost timidly, like a schoolgirl, no strings attached. Doing it because she wants to.

Doing it because no one else is bringing her flowers. Because no one else is treating her right.

She tries not to melt, _God_ , she does, and tries to calm the persistent hammering of her heart because she thinks if it continues at this rate it just might cave her chest in, but she fails on both accounts, miserably, and instead can only reach out, taking the bouquet into her hands and resting it in the crook of her arm, a thin smile playing on her lips.

“I, uh…” She drifts off, lowering her eyes. “Thanks.”

A beat. Then-

“So,” Laurel starts, “now will you go on a date with me?”

Oh, God.

Michaela just stares at her, thoroughly unsurprised. “ _And_ you ruined it.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? Whatever it is, can’t be any worse than that frat boy who tried to invite you back to his dorm room kegger.”

“He… looked older in his picture than he was, okay?” she snaps, then sighs. “Look, any time we get together, someone usually ends up dead. I’d rather keep my criminal record as abbreviated as possible from here on out.” It’s a terrible excuse, and she sounds like she’s reaching – because, well, she _is_ – and she knows it. Laurel knows it too, and gives her a blank Look, prompting Michaela to fidget. “And you know what? You’re as bad as every other guy I’ve gone out with, because you don’t know how to take _no_ for an answer. Is it so hard for you to believe I’m not into you?”

“Yes,” Laurel says, plainly, eyeing her with that disquietingly intense stare of hers, “because I don’t think it’s true.”

She scoffs. “Okay – now you’re just being narcissistic.”

“Mmm,” the other girl hums, considering something, before rubbing her lips together and observing, “You’re cute when you’re flustered, you know that?”

“You can’t just – you can’t just call me _cute_ ,” she sputters, and Laurel feigns confusion.

“I can’t?”

“Yes! And you’re not… allowed to _flirt_ with me either so just – drive.” Stubborn as ever, Laurel doesn’t budge, doesn’t move even an inch, or give any indication she intends to obey, and Michaela huffs. “Just drive, please.”

Laurel raises an eyebrow, but puts the car into gear nonetheless, humming again. “A ‘thank you’ might be nice.”

Michaela wilts, for a moment. She’s been an admittedly shitty friend; here Laurel is, picking her up in the pouring, freezing rain, letting her drip all over her leather seats, buying her flowers and trying to treat her right, and all she can seem to do is continually push her away, because letting Laurel Castillo into her life in any capacity beyond conventional friendship can surely only end in disaster, after everything.

But maybe they can’t be with normal people, after all this; people who aren’t murderers. Maybe they can only be with their own kind.

Maybe, Michaela thinks as Laurel turns the car in the direction of her apartment for what must be the hundredth time, her own kind just happens to include Laurel Castillo.

 

~

 

She wears her down, little by little, night after night – not that Michaela ever gives her any outward indication of the fact, that is.

Nope. No sir. She’ll never in a million years let Laurel see the way she melts when she pulls up in her car in front of the zillionth bar or club or restaurant to rescue her from a bad date. She’ll never speak of the insistent, stubborn twinges in her chest when Laurel brings her flowers to compensate for her less-than-ideal beaus, or chocolates, or even just a coffee at the end of a long, hard night. Because she does all this and she’s never asked her to, not really; she does it because she wants to. Because she _cares_ about her. If it was just about getting in her pants, hitting it and quitting it, she suspects Laurel would’ve given up the ghost long ago.

She doesn’t give up the issue of the date yet, though. If there’s one thing Laurel is, it’s persistent as hell – and she becomes acutely aware of the fact when she awakes one night from a deep slumber, her veil of sleep pierced by what sounds like a series of light _tap tap taps_ on her bedroom window.

Her paranoid brain runs through a list of possibilities immediately as she shoots up in bed, gathering her sheets around her as if they’ll be some kind of suitable shield against whatever intruder is trying to break and enter. Levi. Rebecca. Caleb, back from the dead in ghost form to murder her in her sleep. Her eyes dart around the room, struggling to acclimate to the darkness, and once her mind settles and her mind snaps awake fully, she realizes there’s no intruder at all.

Only a faint _tap tap tap_. Like something pelting her window.

Like someone throwing _rocks_ at her window.

Michaela furrows her brow, wrapping herself in a fuzzy bathrobe and padding her way over to the window – and there, of course, stands none other than Laurel Castillo, hand full of rocks, throwing them at her window like a goddamn highschooler under the golden glow of the streetlight.

Okay. So this is apparently a thing that happens now, in her life.

“Okay, are you – are you joking?” Michaela sputters, throwing open her window and wincing at the blast of winter air that filters inside when she does. “What the _hell_ , Laurel?”

“Oh, thank God it’s you,” Laurel breathes an audible sigh of relief. “I spent twenty minutes throwing them at the window below you. Some old lady almost threw a cat down on me.”

Michaela just gapes at her. “What – you tried to plan out this grand, romantic gesture, and you couldn’t even bother to figure out where I _lived_?”

“I found you now; that’s all that counts,” Laurel remarks, chipper as ever. She’s almost swallowed up by her long, grey winter coat, shivering as the first few flurries of a snowfall drift down from above, cheeks flushed from the cold – and Michaela thinks she’s never looked so delectable. “Go on a date with me.”

 _God_ , she wants to kill her. She also wants to kiss her.

Michaela isn’t sure which one of those things she’ll end up doing first. She thinks both would damn her in roughly the same way.

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” she calls down. “Leave me alone, or I’m calling the cops and getting a restraining order. You can’t just… y-you can’t just _show up_ at my apartment-”

“The things I do for love.”

“This is not love. _This_ is stalking.”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure we’ve done a lot worse things than stalking, on the felony scale.”

“Keep announcing that to my neighbors, why don’t you?” she hisses, hovering between states of indignance and disbelief and unsure which to settle on. Michaela pauses, collecting herself for a moment, before sucking in a breath and holding it in her lungs to steady herself. “Is there something else you need? If not, I’m going back to bed.”

“Just one date,” Laurel calls up, unabashed and equally unwilling to back down. “And if… you don’t have a good time, we can both promise to never speak of it again. You can go back to your long line of Chets. I’ll go back to my… future adoptive cat which doesn’t exist yet, I guess.”

Michaela makes herself glare, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “This can’t wait until morning?”

“I was, I dunno,” Laurel shrugs, gesturing vaguely to the area around her, “going for a romantic, Romeo and Juliet balcony kinda thing.”

She should say no. She really, really, _really_ should. There’s a variety of ways this could end, her going on a date with Laurel; most of the outcomes inevitably involving some sort of disaster. With her Chets it’s easy to pretend to be someone she’s not, enfold herself in a comfortable bubble of perceived normality, when deep down her life is a shitshow in pretty much every way possible a life can _be_ a shitshow, and then some. There’s none of that pretending with Laurel. No hiding. No acting as if Laurel hasn’t seen her at the lowest points of her shitshow of a life, her rock bottom – hell, her level fifty feet _below_ rock bottom, under twenty different layers of shit. Yet she and Laurel don’t make any natural sort of pairing at all. Murder is their sole common denominator, and murder isn’t a decent foundation for any relationship, romantic or not.

But maybe the couple who kills together stays together. Or something to that effect.

“Fine,” she relents, at last, after a long moment, shuddering in the cold winter wind, lips pursed tight. “One date. That’s it.”

It’s hard to describe the look on Laurel’s face, right then, but it looks almost like the waxing crescent of the dark side of moon peeling back, revealing light underneath the blackness, which sparkles in the blues of her eyes, making them glitter silver. She beams, and Michaela makes herself bite back her grin at the sight, holding her breath until her heart stops its persistent, unwelcome stuttering, like it’s eternally tripping over its own beats, tangled up and hopelessly twisted by this girl standing beneath her window.

“Yeah?”

Michaela harrumphs. “Don’t look so happy, Castillo. I’m only agreeing to this to get you to leave me alone.”

“Castillo? So we’re doing nicknames now?” Laurel calls up, smirking. “I hear you loud and clear, snookums.”

“One more word,” Michaela bites out, though her irritation is feigned, largely playful. She can only hope Laurel can’t tell, “and I’m rescinding my acceptance.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.”

“And! For the record?” Michaela tells her. “If you _ever_ say a word about this to anyone, _especially_ anyone at work, I swear-”

“Relax. Two can keep a secret, right?” Laurel soothes, and turns to go, fading back into the night like an apparition, like she’d never been there at all. Like perhaps she was just a dream all along. “If one of them’s dead.”

 

~

 

So she does it. She actually goes on a date with Laurel Castillo.

Thing is, it’s not even a bad date; far from it, actually, compared to her series of recent CupidMeetVenus misadventures. Laurel picks her up. Brings her another bouquet of roses, and shows up on her doorstep in a form-fitting blue dress, dark hair loose around her shoulders, breath rising like steam into the air, flustered and fidgety and awkwardly charming. She’s every bit the gentleman her Chets had failed to be. She tells her she’s beautiful, opens the car door for her, and they talk, and it’s not weird, not forced. Also not creepy. Laurel is a surprisingly pleasant conversationalist when she’s not poking fun at her, witty and silver-tongued, with a quiet, dry sense of humor Michaela has never had the chance to become overly acquainted with, but one which draws more than a few genuine laughs out of her during the ride to the restaurant.

It’s simple. Dinner and a movie. Laurel pays, though Michaela tries to insist, whereupon Laurel reminds her that she has a three hundred-million-dollar trust fund, courtesy of her father, and _no_ , one fancy dinner and one movie won’t break that bank. Michaela spends most of dinner flushed and entranced, staring at Laurel’s features in the dim candlelight, half thrown into shadow but no less captivating. She’d always been merely a blip on her radar, before. The wallflower. The quiet one. Now, she’s anything but.

Somehow, all this time, she’d failed to realize just how _gorgeous_ she is.

The movie, next. It’s some boring, generic, very white, very straight rom-com, with a plot Michaela only bothers to half-follow. Some very average looking man manages to seduce a blonde woman light years out of his league, portrayed by some actress that has been in probably every rom-com ever made. She thinks there’s the obligatory love triangle. A beach setting, likely the director’s excuse for the excess of bikini-clad girls – not that Laurel seems to be taking issue with that part, and if she’s being honest, Michaela isn’t either. A few archetypical female characters so obviously written by men who’ve never spent a day with a real woman in their lives.

It’s a terrible movie. But she doesn’t have a terrible time.

Even without talking, just in the silence, Laurel makes good company. They share a popcorn, which Michaela keeps nestled between her knees, and every now and then as the movie flickers on the screen in front of them and the flashes of the project overhead illuminate them, their hands brush. Smooth as ever in the least smooth way possible, Laurel pretends to yawn halfway through the movie, and ends up with an arm around the back of her seat; a total high school guy move, Michaela thinks, but not one she chooses to protest. She doesn’t mind it, sitting there, all but huddled against Laurel’s side, feeling the gentle warmth of her. She may even like it.

She still, however, doesn’t like _her_. Not even a little. Not at all.

She tries to be negative, complain as often as she can, not give any outward indication that she’s having a good time – but by the time Laurel is walking her up the steps to her building her façade is wearing thin, her mask slipping. She laughs at one of her jokes – she isn’t even sure which, and she’ll blame it on the wine at dinner until her dying day – and it’s then that Laurel glances over at her, affection flickering like a muted spark in those eyes of hers; eyes like hooks, drawing her closer with the inevitability of her gravity. They’re like two planets, hopelessly tangled in each other’s orbits.  

She’s quickly losing her will to escape. Not that she came into this date having much to begin with.

“So,” Laurel begins, gnawing on her lower lip, “how’d I measure up? Y’know. Compared to all your Chets.”

“I plead the Fifth,” she replies easily, playing coy, as they come to a stop at the top of her stoop. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“Well, if it _was_ bad,” Laurel observes, leaning in just slightly too close for comfort, “you would’ve made that clear by now. _Qui tacet consentire videtur_. He who is silent is understood to agree.”

Michaela blinks. “You know Latin?”

All she gets is a shrug, and a slow, sweet smile. “I picked up some here and there.”

“I, uh…” she drifts off, an unfamiliar, sweet ache welling in her chest. Finally, she flicks her eyes up to meet Laurel’s. “I guess I just keep learning new things about you.”

Another shrug. She swears Laurel’s eyes dart down to look at her lips, for a moment. “I have a lot of layers. And many… hidden talents.”

The implication of her words is far from lost on Michaela, especially considering her proximity to her, so close she can feel the whisper brush of Laurel’s breaths on her cheek as she exhales. It’s not unwelcome. Really not unwelcome at all.

Neither is the image it puts in her mind.

“You could… come in,” she says, before she can think better of what she’s suggesting. Her lungs feel swollen, heavy, like they’re too full and she can’t draw any more air into them. Like Laurel is sucking the air right out, stealing it away from her every time their eyes meet. “Show me what those hidden talents are.”

Laurel wrinkles her nose, in that subtle, disarming way of hers. “I’m not a first date kind of girl.”

Michaela scoffs. “Then what kind of girl are you?”

“What?” she teases, and inches just half a millimeter closer. She cocks her head to one side, like a bull, inviting a challenge. “I buy you dinner and now you’re expecting me to put out too?” Michaela doesn’t answer, and she laughs. “Let’s make it to the second date. Then we’ll talk.”

“And who says there’s gonna be a second date?”

“You’re, like, two inches away from kissing me,” Laurel quips, “so if there’s not gonna be a second date, I’m really not sure wh-”

Turns out, the easiest way to shut Laurel up is by kissing her.

Her lips are soft. Impossibly so. _Everything_ about her is soft, from her hair, to her baby smooth skin, to the way she reaches up, grasping her arm, opening her mouth and allowing her deeper, and _soft_ isn’t an adjective Michaela would ever particularly associate with Laurel, but she is. She’s soft and sweet and gentle, undemanding. No end goal in mind. No ulterior motive. She’s kissing her because she _wants_ to kiss her, kissing her like she’ll drown if she doesn’t, kissing her like she wants to drown in _her_ , and she can’t remember the last time anybody did that, and God, she can feel the want and adoration in Laurel’s kiss too, feel the way she pours it into her.

She doesn’t think she’s ever been kissed like this.

They break apart not long after, and when Laurel comes into view, her lips are pink and swollen from kissing her, pupils blown wide. It’s freezing cold, but neither of them are shivering, insulted in this bubble of their own body heat they’ve created for themselves, locked in the tides of each other’s breathing. Laurel is staring at her with something she thinks might be fascination, amazement, as if she almost can’t believe she’s real, but then the look fades back into something more certain, a familiar twinkle of mirth glittering in her eyes.

“You said you were a queen looking for your king,” she remarks, suddenly, her lips parting in another smile, revealing the pearls of her teeth, as she turns and leaves her, breathless and stunned. “But maybe… your king was a queen, all along."


End file.
